ELSS Case Studies

Approximately how large is the Amazon rainforest?

6.7 million km2

What type of tree is in the Amazon?

Tall evergreen hardwood trees

What is Amazon’s average annual temperature range?

25-30 degrees

What is the Amazon’s average annual rainfall?

2000mm

What percentage of precipitation is recycled by evapotranspiration in the Amazon?

50-60%

What percentage of precipitation in the Amazon is intercepted?

10%

How many trees are in the Amazon?

400 billion

How much carbon is stored by trees in the Amazon?

60 billion tonnes

What is the Amazon’s average Net Primary Productivity?

2000 g/m2/year

What percentage of light reaches the tropical rainforest floor?

3%

Rainforests can store up to how much carbon per hectare?

300 tonnes

How much carbon can palm oil plantations store per hectare?

30 tonnes

How much larger are the Amazon Regional Protected Areas than Belgium?

20x

By 2015, what percentage of the Brazilian Amazon consisted of national parks, wildlife reserves and indigenous reserves where farming is banned?

44%

In 2009, who were the first indigenous group in Amazonia to join the UN’s Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) scheme?

The Surui

The Parica Project in Rondonia (West Amazon) aims to develop a timber plantation on government owned deforested land of what size?

1000km2

What does the Parica Project want to plant on 4000 smallholdings to mature across 25 years?

20 million fast growing tropical hardwood seedlings

How long is the alpline tundra growing season?

180 days

How long is summer in the tundra?

50-60 days

What percentage of the Earth’s carbon in stored in the permafrost?

14%

What is the Net Primary Productivity of the tundra?

200g/m2/year

How much carbon is stored in the permafrost?

1700 GT

How long does carbon remain stored in the permafrost?

500,000 years

What is the tundra’s annual precipitation?

150-250mm

What is the average winter temperature in the tundra?

-34 degrees

What is the temperature range in the tundra?

-40-16 degrees

How large is the arctic tundra?

8 million km2

How much of the world’s carbon is stored in the arctic tundra?

1/3

How many barrels of oil does Prudhoe Bay Oil Field output per day?

281,800

How many gallons of oil were spilt due to corroded BP pipeline at Prudhoe Bay Oil Field in 2006?

267,000

The Trans Alaskan Pipeline transports how many barrels of oil per year across 1287km?

212 million

An oil tanker that ran aground in Prince William in 1989 spilt how much crude oil?

11 million gallons

What impermeable rock types means there is rapid runoff in the Amazon?

Igneous & metamorphic

How many land species of animals are there in the Arctic Tundra?

48

What rock type results in low percolation in the Arctic Tundra?

Crystalline rocks

What are the high wind speeds in the Arctic Tundra that accelerate channel flow?

50-100 km/hr

What is the most productive oil field in the USA?

BP Prudhoe Bay Oil

How many does the oil & gas industry employ in Alaska?

110,000

How much does the oil & gas industry provide to the Alaskan economy?

$14 billion

Where was the 2010 Trans Alaskan Pipeline leak?

Port Greely

Approximately how many oil spills are there each year at Prudhoe Bay?

500

How much larger than Belgium are the Amazon Regional Protected Areas?

20x

Brazil is committed to restoring how much rainforest by 2030?

120,000 km2

When were forest conservation areas first established in Brazil?

1988

What is the UN programme that granted carbon credits to the Surui as they planted seedlings in deforested areas?

UN Reducing Emissions from Deforestation & Degradation (REDD)